7 Game Design Mistakes to Avoid!

I think rushing and scope creep might be my biggest mistake, but this video got me thinking of the rest too

Game devs like The worst of us 2 and God of bore? Yeah, I'll pass.

Another mistake to avoid: not estimating enough time for Optimization the Performance of your Game (for Profiling the performance and taking the necessary measures with your team: artists & programmers).

This is extremely important for Indie medium sized 3D games made with Unreal Engine, Unity3D, Godot, etc.
This step should be started right when the project is 60% done... and revised when it's 80% and 99% again.

I am guilty of starting too big when I first started to use unity I immediately started a complex fps game and I was lost I didn't know how to do animations I was not the experienced with C# or any programming language in that matter. But that was 3 years ago and I defiantly have bettered my self. I think?

Thanks!

Here's a tip for people working on their first project: Figure out what size the screen is going to be as early as possible, and scale your assets accordingly. When I started my current project, I was so proud of my sprites that I zoomed the camera in too far. After building a super basic tutorial level, I realized that there wasn't enough space on the screen to make more complex encounters. You can't artificially change asset proportions in-engine without warping pixels and making your game's art style look inconsistent, so I had to build a bunch of sprites all over again and re-design my tutorial level from the ground up. Don't do what I did - Plan your screen size!

#6 underestimating polish
Me, a Polish person: damn straight

Great tips! Thanks guys! :)

As a player, Idk a lot about design, but here's some more specific problems I consistently notice in really good games that are very fun and well-made in almost every way. Like I said, I'm not a game dev (yet, actively fixing that), but this is what goes through the head of a frustrated player, which is ultimately what you're trying to avoid, so here's what usually upsets me, personally.

1) I think you should make sure it's never hard for the player to do what they know they want to do, especially if there's no reason for it to be challenging. For example, don't ever put a randomly difficult platforming section or enemy somewhere. I've been playing one of my favorite games, and there's at least three places so far where you can fall into an area and not get out because you can technically jump out, so there's no other option, but the platforms are so high you can barely reach them. I tried to jump out for over 5 minutes before giving up. There's really no reason for this to be here, the area's not meant to be challenging, and even if it was, not being able to precisely hit an almost unreachable platform is not challenging but stupidly frustrating. Also, I would advise structuring platforming segments, whether they are a challenge or just an area to be traversed, so that if a player falls off of a platform, they are caught by another platform underneath. It's annoying to fall down an entire section, just stagger the platforms so you fall only one level.

2) Never, ever, ever put a long unskippable cutscene before a boss fight. It is just pouring so much salt on the wounds of losing over and over again to make the player watch a 60 second cinematic or a 30 line long dialogue exchange every single time they fight the boss and it's so infuriating. Eventually the awesomeness of the character sticking the landing and the boss rearing up and roaring, or the important and interesting story revealed in dialogue will be hated by the player because they have to wait for it, then they die and have to wait for it, and it can spoil how good it might've been. Be like Team Cherry; include the dialogue (or cutscene) when you first meet the boss, then leave it out after that. Also, don't make your player have to backtrack a lot to get back to the boss. Put a save really close before the boss, or just automatically save before it and respawn the player next to the entrance or something, because it feels really unfair when you can take a lot of damage trying to get to the boss, therefore having even less of a chance of winning and an even shorter time before you have to go through it again. Especially if there's difficult platforming or other enemies between. Also, always be sure to put a save directly after a boss. Don't line up multiple hard bosses or areas without a save! That is called a boss rush and shouldn't be needed to finish a game. Basically, boss fights are hard enough. Make it challenging, sure, but you're not trying to punish your players, so make the boss easier or harder, but try to minimize the pain caused by other things. If the boss is hard, put a save before and after, without hard platforming, enemies, time-consuming and tedious traversal, or a long cutscene in between.

This was really helpful

The ace of base of camel case…

Todd Howard said: It just works

wow your ace of base reference stinks as crap

excellent video!!we
ll done

Two comments: 1) I don't agree with some of your points in the "Overly Rigid Design". You suggested to add open world elements and/or add destructible environments. That won't work with every type of game. Adding Open world elements to some games would be pointless or would ruin the experience. Some games supposed to be linear. And be careul with adding destructible environments: it could make the game too easy, or it may affect the game negatively in some other way.

2) The "Don't Arbitrarily Add Things" is super important. I was making a platformer, and I wanted to make the player character to pick up blocks so that they could stack them and use them as a platform. However, coding it gave me a ton of bugs (specially with collision detection, since my collision detection wasn't very good to begin with,) it would give me more bugs along the way (the game has doors. Technically, the character could go trhough a door with blocks, but I didn't want that. Also, if the blocks fell off a bottomless pit, I would need a way to make them respawn, or the game would be unbeatable,) and it was harder to code than I thought. Also, I had to fine tune the rest of my game since I already had some bugs that could ruin the game. So, I ended up scrapping the block mechanic altogether. So yeah: please, DON'T add features to your game just for the sake of it. Its better to have a few features and have a good game with almost no bugs, than a buggy game with a ton of features.

I don't like number 4, too rigid design. That can spectacularly backfire. A world that is too open or bland and too loose physics, that don't allow for consistent strategizing are bad. Only a few streamlined routes in a limited area is a good idea, but... I'm an oldschool gamer and learning by dying and learning a perfect route in a jump'run, shoot'em up or otherwise is perfectly acceptable. The fun comes from iterating. Too loose design is just as bad and rigid design is often a good choice.

Always enjoy watching some of these videos as reminders and a bit of general encouragement honestly lol.

We stay focused pretty well and I'd like to at least THINK that we are on the right path with avoiding these issues. Only time will tell though lol. Appreciate the videos though for certain.

Polish is very important. Viva Warszava

I have a question: Do you think coding is required to be a game designer?

Dont jump in thinking all the stuff you start with is final...your gonna redesign that entire game over and over and over again...

Hey, I know that Sharky guy!

Greetings from turkey

.

And now people are like "eWwwW FoRTNItE CrinG!!"

"Ideas are a dime a dozen". Yeah, heard that one many times. But actually, good ideas are very rare (and thus very expensive).
A good idea means you do less work, or earn much more money with the same invested effort.
People who think all ideas are similar, and worth almost nothing, never had a good idea in their life.

Putting particle effects everywhere... Less is more...

Having particles that don't fit the game...

Having a very complicated stylish action cinematic and rubbish gameplay...

Using outdated mechanics in games... Static cameras in 3rd person action.. Strafing... Etc...

Totally ripping off anyone else.. Big no no.. You will be called out on it...

Having incredible gameplay and failing on the graphics or vice versa...

Thinking your the hottest thing ever when your pretty crap....

Having a state of the art looking game.. But the character can just stand there without getting hit while you beat the unholey out of everything that moves in zero danger...

Making a souls clone...

Having a technology character that looks like its doing magic or vice versa...

Begging other designers for help on really basic fundamentals that you could learn anywhere...

Asking other designers for their code... Ugh.. No buddy...

Having characters and bosses that don't fit the theme and evironments or vice versa...

Combining gameplay mechanics and ideas and genres in stupid ways... Eg.. Turn based with hack and slash...

Having magical looking attacks in something that's supposed to be historical...

Etc..

Me not knowing a lick of code or anything in general: "ah yes...stonks..."

One thing you can learn is to make sure the core gameplay/concept/prototype is actually fun before going forth, so you aren't polishing a piece of whatsit.

thanks

Guys. I think you're not going to ever get the kind of following you hope, because it seems way to robotic. The infographics show doesn't have personality, even if it produces oodles of content.

I want to become a game designer, hopefully I can end up working on level Design, I just have to learn what I can do to become a level designer

Them: polish, polish, polish
Me (being Polish): yes

Bethesda didn't saw this video...

In game tutorials are repulsive, you start the game by forming a workshop with the developer instead of being immersed into the fantasy world created by the developer. But I guess that's all part of getting cum laude in western game dev faculty.

I want to be making games but it’s coding that’s hard for me to do because I don’t know how to start

1:skipable cutscenes
2:skipable tutorials
3: plents of savings
i dont ask nothing more

watched this in 1.75 speed and he was talking just a bit faster than normal speed, i can't imagine how slow he'd be at 1x speed, good video though

Thank you so much for excellent videos like these guys! you rock!